Thirteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year B- Reach Out And Touch Him!

Our Gospel today is about two people who came to Jesus for help with a medical problem.

“My left arm hurt me,” said a senior citizen, “and so did my right foot, my neck and my back. Then I went to the doctor and he tapped my knee with a little hammer.”

“So how are you now?” asked a friend.

“Now my knee hurts too!” he exclaimed.1

Consider that the crowd was pressing upon Jesus but the disciples couldn’t tell a press from a touch when the woman afflicted with hemorrhages was healed by touching Jesus’ clothes.

Mark 5:30 says, “Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him.”

What does it feel like to touch Jesus’ clothes?

As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.”2

E.g. John Leaps was a Catholic teen who was legally blind and his parents were legally blind. He likes to say that his parents met on a blind date. At a youth event, John touched the veil the priest was using to hold up the Monstrance as he processed around the church. When John touched the veil he was cured—he had 20/20 vision for a short while, just long enough to receive the message and mission that in the Eucharist he would see—he has since had a powerful ministry.3

What does it feel like to have power come out from you?

E.g. The Lord Jesus told Saint Faustina regarding helping priests and religious: You will pray particularly for them; their power will come from your diminishment-prayers, fasts, mortifications (531).

When you allow your power to come out of you to heal others by your sacrifices and intercessory prayer, you will feel unseen, unheard, overlooked and uncredited. This is so others can “make an impact.”

We also see that there is “a functional identity between Jesus’ garments and his person.”4 This is the only miracle where Jesus is passive. The person just has to touch his clothes to receive the healing power.5

The application is that you touch and even consume Jesus’s body and blood sacramentally. You don’t have to “do” anything. Just stick your tongue out. Every Mass is a healing Mass. You don’t want to receive Jesus in Holy Communion thoughtlessly, like you are just bumping up to him in a crowd. Receive him with the touch of faith. Hear Jesus call you “my daughter” like he healed the woman of her illegitimate shame from her menstrual bleeding.

And for chronic addiction issues, you are going to have to take a chance to receive your healing after 12 years of the same old thing. She dares to make contact with Jesus’ power. 12 years of smoking. 12 years of drugs. The law had required her remain at home with her bleeding condition but she snuck out and in the crowd touched Jesus’ clothes. Keep your anonymity.

Did you know that after the woman touched his clothes, Jesus was required by law to wash his clothes? (Leviticus 15:11, 21-22), but he didn’t. He bore our sins in his Body on the Cross and we are healed by his stripes. Jesus canceled our condemnation by nailing it to the cross to free us from chains and lead us out of darkness.

Jesus said to her: "Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction."

“Your faith has saved you” is probably a baptismal formula because several other verses link faith and salvation to baptism (Mark 16:16; Romans 10:9-10; and several others have clear baptismal associations (Luke 7:50; Acts 17:31; Ephesians 1:13; Hebrews 11:7).

Faith leading to salvation from baptism is also seen by what the early Christians taught and did, like Tertullian (On Baptism 12:8) and Cyprian (on Re-baptism, 18). 6

Norms 1 and 2 of the R.C.I.A. statues say that the evangelization of unbaptized persons during the Period of Evangelization and Precatechumenate will lead them through Scripture, prayer, and friendly conversation to an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ as the fullness of God’s revelation and that a parochial minister [like a DRE] will meet inquirers individually to hear of their “first faith,” discern the continuing impact of their encounter with the Lord, and discuss any issues (e.g., an irregular marriage) that could affect their eventual celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation.

There is one other healing we have to discuss: the raising to life of the dead little twelve year old girl.

People can seemingly have nonstop demands. We have to operate out of our reserve tanks of prayer and utter trust in almighty God. The little girl was alive when they first told Jesus about her but he had to first deal with the woman bleeding for twelve years. So, he ranks their needs and responds accordingly.7